The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle by Bruce Springsteen (Vinyl record album review)

Album name: The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle

Artist name: Bruce Springsteen

Year: 1973

Number of discs: one

Label: Columbia Records

Collection: Brenner / Gessner

Who owned it: I was pretty sure that this was my father’s, but he said that he never bought a Springsteen record; my mother confirmed that she was the fan, and added that she saw Springsteen perform at a coffee house in the late 1960s while she was still in high school.

Buy it on Amazon: $24.95

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I have never listened to this record before, but I recognize some of the songs on it by name, from the previous three Springsteen records that I’ve reviewed, which were:

Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. (1973): 2/5

Flat Top and Pin Drop (1975): 3/5

Live 1975–85 (1986): 3/5

What I expected

Rock.

What it was actually like

There were not any songs on this record that I enjoyed, but of the seven, I would say that Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) was the most lively and probably the best. It stood out on Live 1975–85, also.

Five of the seven songs had horns, which was approximately five too many; only Incident on 57th Street and 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy) left them out. They were both boring, soulless rock songs, and the latter had an accordion and was the worst on the record.

Wild Billy’s Circus Story started out as an Oompa Loompa song, but quickly turned boring.

Two of the songs were more funk and jazz: The E Street Shuffle, which had a sound effect of yelling people in the background to make it sound live, but it was not live; and Kitty’s Back, which started with prominent electric guitar, then after the intro turned into more of a funk song with prominent keyboard.

New York City Serenade had way too much piano, and I had no idea why it lasted for almost ten minutes.

Grade

2/5: bad, but I was able to listen to the whole thing